Unfortunately I wasn't able to add my insurance selection in NFC system when I first started and it wasn't a fillable PDF form. So I had to email to my personal, then print, sign, scan and send back to my work email.
Except for the mailing part, I have to do shit like that, too. Oh and the tabs on the binders need to all be the same style of the commander's action group will kick it back. Which is sometimes a challenge to round up enough of the same tab style because we have almost zero budget for supplies and/or the person who orders doesn't think to check for matching style even though we've reminded her to do so.
Then when the subordinate organizations submit slide deck updates past the deadline we gave them, I'm still expected to updated the binders anyway, at the last minute before the meeting with senior leaders.
I always said “I just want a laptop that can run Outlook, Teams, and PowerPoint at the same time without crashing and that is apparently too much to ask”.
This is my approach. I tell them it’s flattering that they think we’re organized, resourced, and operationally coherent enough to pull off the types of conspiracies we’re accused of. I ask them to stop before I start blushing.
I spent over a year trying to buy a printer. When I finally got said printer, I was informed that policy had changed and I cannot have a printer in my office because there’s another printer in someone’s office down the hall, and that’s too many printers in one area. I cannot use the printer in that dude’s office because he locks it when he’s teleworking which is most of the time. I’ve been sending everything I need printed to another building’s printer and walking back and forth all day.
I have so many of these stories for these folks.
Funny enough, when I tell them I’m DoD they make an exception unless they want to talk about the “woke” military. In that case I tell them about the terrifying annual EO training I click through every October.
I spent two days finding chemicals and printing SDS sheets. We have stuff that *expired* in the 90s.
On the other hand, did you know DHMO is an inhalation hazard even when distilled?
My agency is too busy trying to recover from Alex Jones amazing investigating journalism piece where he exposed us putting chemicals in the water to turn frogs gay. I don't know if my agency will ever recovery from that exposure.
Me when I heard the conspiracy theory about the helicopters my agency supposedly had: “shit, I could have been taking a helicopter all this time instead of doing my fly commute on American?!”
My mom confronted me about nanobots in the covid vaccine, so I asked her why we'd spend trillions tracking people's locations, thoughts, spending habits, etc. when *she's* already paying *them* to do it for us, and I waved her cell phone in her face. She turned beet red and stopped asking me about it
I was on a virtual townhall where some pharmacist was talking about the vaccine and got interrupted with that question.
She holds her phone up to the screen - "well you can start by throwing this in the river because it has more microchips than I could dream getting into a syringe."
"Do we have any other intelligent questions." And continued on without missing a beat.
It's only possible when people lack any comprehension of technological achievement. Oh you want nanobots? Get back to me in 500 years at the earliest.
They mistake science fiction in movies as reality.
Reminds me of the time when some dummy was talking about how “they” know everything. They even know when you use the toilet on an airplane. And I said, well don’t take your phone with you. And he got silent.
Lol
I once had my friend's aunt tell me that the government was watching us through our tv sets. I asked her who was getting paid to watch millions of hours of footage that was probably mostly very uninteresting, and she bluescreened right in front of me.
My best friend’s father growing up believed this. He became radicalized and sold all his baseball cards (he had some insanely valuable card like a Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth) and started buying food and guns.
He told me the govt was watching us through the tv and they’d come to put us in camps. He told me he’d shoot us all first and when I was ascending to heaven not to look back at my parents. LOL.
My MIL thinks she is being spied on through her phone/gps -.- but I’m thinking it’s a mental decline issue like dementia, because that’s the only thing that would make sense.
People confuse the govt's ability to do something against a target with actually thinking they're a target without any basis for that belief. No, the govt doesn't care about grandma's phone unless she's been doing some shady shit to get herself on some agency's radar.
Who is actually listening to our phones are the tech companies and the AI "assistants" they've embedded in the smartphones. Start talking with a friend about some random product? Ads related to that random product soon start showing up on your feeds, without you even having done an Internet search.
Well. She is being tracked if she uses a cellphone. She’s not wrong about that, it’s just the WHO and the WHY she’s got wrong. How do you explain to someone who is paranoid that well, they’re right but they’re wrong?!
Honestly why I think 1984 sucks. Orwell was at the time a bitter dying man who couldn't imagine a future without Stalin (not communism, not the USSR, just literally Joseph Stalin), which would arrive less than 4 years after the book's publication.
So now we're stuck with our primary cultural lens for dystopia being a really tortured metaphor about an extremely specific period of history, and the really unimaginative aspects of the book's portrayal of the future have become culturally accepted truths about our present reality.
It was a limited imagining of surveillance (visual) based in the technology of the time period. At the time it would be hard to fathom the sheer amount of data people produce or having algorithms to crunch it, never mind how it could be used for surveillance and I am sure there's still a lot of people who don't understand how that could or does work.
The control of people through language was pretty spot on though.
This is great! I’m going to start saying that I oversee vaccine manufacturing to ensure the tracking chips are operational and that they turn kids gay.
I tell them not to worry, the process of contracting technical work out will eventually drain the competency of enough federal agencies that corporations will fully capture the seat of government.
And that if they don't like the current government cabal, they'll hopefully like the Lockheed/General Dynamics/Raytheon/Northrop Grumman oligarchy.
Not too far from the truth - in our shop a lot of major national programs are only one or two feds deep and some of the fed subject matter experts are just a few years away from retirement. Outsourcing everything was one of Reagan's worst ideas for how to run government.
I will never forget the day I walked to my car in the secure parking lot of my federal facility and saw one of my coworkers had a 3%er bumper sticker. Guess when the call to rise up comes he will shoot himself first
These people. One minute they claim the government is too incompetent to fix a pothole. The next, they claim they are orchestrating complex conspiracies, and doing it to perfection.
Old people like to say things. Just take it for the babbling that it is.
The paradox of federal workers: we're simultaneously too incompetent to be worth our salaries and orchestrating massive conspiracies to control the American people.
What’s crazy to me is *working* with some of those people! The other day I walked past two colleagues talking about chem trails! 🤣
Personally, I don’t tell people where I work.
Person: Where do you work?
Me: In an office.
Person: What do you do?
Me: Verify information on forms. I’m your basic pencil-pusher.
The person asking is already so bored that I can walk away without them even noticing I never said *where* I work 🤣
Yup. Had my eyes opened when I found out that a few people in FDA were vaccine hesitant.
Did you think that if you got an FDA job, you'd be able to Uncover The Truth?
How people think the government controls their life: Microchips, vaccines, chem trails
How the government actually controls their life: changes a 0.01 into a 0.02 in an excel spreadsheet
"Contrary to what has been leaked, the Jewish Space Lasers are aimed away from earth - not towards it. And if you only knew what we were warding off the last thing you'd worry about is the illuminati."
I had a detail to Mt. Rushmore back in 2015. People would come up to me and make statements about putting Trump on the mountain. I looked at them with a straight face and told them the space next to Roosevelt was reserved for Hillary. Lots of brains short circuited that weekend.
I actively encourage it. As ridiculously as possible. After dispensing the gay drugs into the water supply, my typical day includes preparing child sacrifices for the Clinton’s, and photoshopping our flat earth into a round image for the nasa interns. It’s a pretty chill day if I can hop a domestic flight to hit up some chem trails, and add some mercury nano bots into vaccines. Doing the hard work to make sure our tax dollars are spent wisely.
Start keeping a small notebook in your pocket and anytime he says something, quietly write down all the details of what he said and then put it back in your pocket. When he asks what you're doing, just tell him he doesn't' have the proper clearance for the information he's requesting lol
Assure them that it is true, and that while you are not quite at that level, your Director does in fact report to the agency’s supervising contact with the Trilateral Commission.
Surprisingly I’ve found people who believe in that sort of thing to actually respect you if you hand out this spiel and they leave you alone about it for the most part. It’s denying that you are part of a vast conspiracy that confirms you must be part of a vast conspiracy. Source: I might have a crazy extended family.
I'm a NASA employee. I tell people the truth, that we simply can't keep a secret. We get so excited about the most mundane shit and tell everyone around us. If we had aliens, they would be in selfies with us all over social media, and we would be jabbering about it to uninterested members of the sex we're attracted to before they wander off out of boredome.
Here's a goofy story, just for fun: about 10 years ago I was a deputy director in an organization and I was in the hallway talking to the director of another org. A Project Manager for a reimbursable project (industry partner) came up to us and said, "you two need to see something." She was very agitated and I found myself kind of excited because we were headed into a room where video that hadn't been cleared for release was processed. I never got to go in there. Anyway she is showing us footage of a ground test that we were familiar with but then something was moving in the video foreground. It wasn't an animal, and it wasn't something caused by thermals on the desert floor. It also made a really weird movement that looked kind of strange. We watched it a dozen times (the director even, hilariously, asked if we could enhance it like it was an episode of CSI and none of the professional video people around us had thought of it) before we realized we were looking at a Mylar balloon. I was so annoyed...I thought that, finally, I was seeing some crazy espionage or something even crazier. But nope. Just someone's carelessly handled Mylar balloon wandering around the desert...
Omg, I got one of these on the phone back at the IRS and, well, it had been a day. So I covered my mic and said "Shit, sir he's on to us! Send in the choppers!" He hung up. I got a very stern talking to.
The robes and candles are cool, but all the chanting does get a little tiresome. Flawless 5G signal all the time is Def sweet. My favorite part is deciding which minor right wing celebrity to cancel this week. Crossing my fingers for Kevin Sorbo!
I don't associate with people like that (although they are online). Hard to do when it's your dad. Sounds like you're gonna have your hands full with him.
I would lean into it and pretend to accidentally let slip details about activating the microchips the government has implanted in us or whatever cockamamie batshit plans he thinks are happening, personally.
I told people I lay awake at night trying to think of ways to make their lives miserable. Wait, no, I don't! Because, as they often forget, I am also a taxpayer impacted by the decision of govt!
You must have BLUE LEVEL CLEARANCE to even discuss that in public!
Rumors are treason! GOOD DAY CITIZEN!
[https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0609/6139/0839/files/Paranoia\_Preview.pdf?v=1666949240](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0609/6139/0839/files/Paranoia_Preview.pdf?v=1666949240)
Talk in a robot voice and say: “message from nanobot central … you are delinquent on your IRS taxes. Please say or press one to talk to a representative” and “all of our customer service representatives are currently unavailable. Please stand by.”
"My taxes pay your wages!!"
"I work for the IRS sir, my taxes also pay my wages." I've said that on a few calls with taxpayers before, then they get all 🤯!
😂
I have a friend who swears my people at work have secret government cover ups. I just tell them that my co workers don't even know what to do during a fire drill.
I start bitching and moaning about how the illuminati lizard cabal won't let me in because I refused to unionize. Woke has ruined everything! "Oh how I yearn for the days of *in*voluntary sacrifice. None of this #MeToo bs!"
Press your finger to your ear and say some Latin words, then smile and nod.
Make no mistake our government is far from perfect and has been involved in shady dealings and some pretty gross actions. But hardly any of this is coordinated. I bet most of us could only dream of the kind of efficiency that would allow a proper cabal to function.
One cannot reason with people like this…
…in situations like this, one just nods and say “…yep…” and try the subject by deflecting it to some mundane and lame topic like the how good the lawn looks or how well the birds sing…
Like this:
DAD: “Gud dumm goooovernment fuckin’ around n creating chaos in the potato chip market…raisin’ prices so a man can’t even buy a bag o’chips for the game…!!!”
YOU: “…yep….yard lookin’ mighty nice pop……how be aunt Mary? She be feedin’ ‘em song birds good still…”
Take it from me - 18 year federal employee listening to stupid shit from farm in-laws on how the USG is fucking everything up and how city folks don’t work…🙄
The ones that really get me are coworkers. Like extended family I only see once a year are one thing, but people who actually work here; when we first got PIV cards I had to respond to a person who asked if could not use it because it was “a mark of the beast”.
He probably also thinks that government is incredibly bloated and inefficient. Ask him which it is - a group of evil, hyper focused geniuses plotting to destroy the country or a group of fat cat welfare queens bumbling along and wasting tax payer dollars?
Has your dad also fallen down the sov-cit or q-anon nonsense? If so, abandon all hope, he's too deep into the conspiracy rabbit hole.
If he's just a garden-variety paranoid person, then just lean into it. Tell him it's the Fight Club of federal gov, and you're not allowed to talk about it.
I typically ask what they think of me in that case. Especially when it is someone close, how hurtful it is to imply I would be a part of something like that. And if they again imply that it might happen without my knowing, then surely they see how ludicrous that sounds, or at least how overly complicated it is. It’s better to break things down to their basics in these instances. Start simple, and ask why they would make claims for an organization I (you) are associated with, when that implies our complicity.
We're not? /jk
Being completely serious now it goes without question that there's nothing wrong with a healthy distrust of government. Key being healthy. In fact that has always been kind of a theme since the founding of America. Obviously over the top conspiracy theories are another thing altogether but people who either blindly trust or blindly agree with government are concerning to say the least.
I tend to remind those people that they work in the same office as me and have been part of these conspiracies they believe in for longer than I have been alive. It rarely works...
My cousin is convinced of a deep state that put tracking chips in vaccines. I told him, "honestly, we don't care. You have a debit card and cellphone, if we want to track you we can get your info from your mobile provider, what you buy from all your store bonus cards and debit card, and your contact info from Google. They track you, we don't have to.
I was approached in a McDonald’s while I was waiting for my daughter to finish up a sports practice while I was wearing my PIV card around my neck. I just agreed with the guy that Obama was ruining the U.S. in the hopes he would just go away. It was that day that I stopped wearing my badge outside of the office.
Having the PIV out in public isn’t a good idea both for OPSEC and to avoid those uncomfortable interactions you had. I have heard some crazy theories during similar interactions just wearing a Navy hoodie I bought while working at a shipyard. My sympathies.
I had a friend who was convinced I worked for some black ops part of the guv. I had to go through a Top Secret BI and they of course asked for references. I gave them the friend's name but they had A LOT of questions, e.g. what do I do, where's my office, what type of super secret info do I have access to. The investigator and I tried to explain we couldn't get into that type of information. Also tried to explain what I did but they didn't believe me.
Relax, you are not part of the Cabal.
You are just an unwitting tool that the people in charge use to destroy our democracy and control us. When they hand out keys to the good Vaults, you wont be getting a Key. You will be able to suffer along with the rest of us when the stupidity hits the fan.
I tell them there is a secret cabal but they're dead set on instituting an extreme right wing Christian Nationalist theocracy, it's only half of Congress and corporate America that are involved, and I'm just a dude who wants to do his job and go home, just like anyone else.
Here is a different perspective. In my career, my colleagues and I have negotiated with countless people from the industry we regulate. As with any negotiation, this can be frustrating at times. Many feel as if the other side is purposely working for delay or doing anything they can to derail us instead of working with us for the best outcome.
Long ago, one of my managers told us that we had to back off the assumption that everybody we negotiated with were evil geniuses. The simpler explanation would almost always be that, in addition to not agreeing with a number of things we were attempting, that they actually don't understand where we are coming from. Furthermore, as with every group of people, we don't know if we are dealing with their best and brightest any more than they do with us.
It is very likely, with some very obvious exceptions, that most of the people on both sides are trying to do the best job they can with integrity.
Idk, industry says they want to work with us and then file frivolous lawsuits and some bad actors even write the shittiest things in their “rebuttals” for matters we bring against them (which already need to be on the extreme cases for us to pursue action)
I’ve been growing increasingly disillusioned at cooperation.
This is the "legacy" Donald tRump has left the country---distrust of all government institutions, agencies, and people who aren't 100% in agreement with everything the Rump says.
I find it rather entertaining and ironic that some people can confidently state they don’t associate with idiots/morons. You most surely do, you just lack the humility to admit it.
I ran into one of them. I usually just say people work their jobs so they can go home after 8 hours.
These same people seem to expect government workers to be a "clock in clock out" lazy types.
I don't know anyone like that and I don't respond to that sort of nonsense anyways.
Of course, a bunch of people here will literally say the same thing about the GOP.
It's a funny and unique experience being a Fed and a Conservative. Just keep watching the show.
I want to tell them that if they feel that way then we can just roll back all that CDBG funding that pays for rural and small town water/sewer systems, and they can feel free to just go OYO: build an outhouse and hike to the nearest creek with buckets.
I was recently implicated as a pro-Israel baby killer when I went into a convience store by the British employee.. and this is in Asia.
I just wanted some fried chicken.
I let out a diabolical laugh. Take their picture. And then yell loudly that I, (name of a guy I hate), will be looking for them. In the system. Then I run off. 🤣😂
“We can’t even connect to our printers… chill out”
Holy crap, I feel so triggered reading this. It took me longer than 10 minutes to explain to my wife how I sign personnel forms on my work laptop.
You can't just sign them in Adobe or even (although it's even more newfangled) Office?
Unfortunately I wasn't able to add my insurance selection in NFC system when I first started and it wasn't a fillable PDF form. So I had to email to my personal, then print, sign, scan and send back to my work email.
This is the way. -- NPS
I still have to print several 100-300 page documents, put them in binders, then mail them to DC to “complete” a project.
File a fraud, waste and abuse claim with your OIG.
Maybe that isn’t such a terrible idea after all.
Except for the mailing part, I have to do shit like that, too. Oh and the tabs on the binders need to all be the same style of the commander's action group will kick it back. Which is sometimes a challenge to round up enough of the same tab style because we have almost zero budget for supplies and/or the person who orders doesn't think to check for matching style even though we've reminded her to do so. Then when the subordinate organizations submit slide deck updates past the deadline we gave them, I'm still expected to updated the binders anyway, at the last minute before the meeting with senior leaders.
I truly am sorry
Or the fact 20 different systems that we use fail about every day.
I always said “I just want a laptop that can run Outlook, Teams, and PowerPoint at the same time without crashing and that is apparently too much to ask”.
Ah I see an NMCI customer has entered the group...
Flunkspeed
This is my approach. I tell them it’s flattering that they think we’re organized, resourced, and operationally coherent enough to pull off the types of conspiracies we’re accused of. I ask them to stop before I start blushing.
I spent over a year trying to buy a printer. When I finally got said printer, I was informed that policy had changed and I cannot have a printer in my office because there’s another printer in someone’s office down the hall, and that’s too many printers in one area. I cannot use the printer in that dude’s office because he locks it when he’s teleworking which is most of the time. I’ve been sending everything I need printed to another building’s printer and walking back and forth all day. I have so many of these stories for these folks. Funny enough, when I tell them I’m DoD they make an exception unless they want to talk about the “woke” military. In that case I tell them about the terrifying annual EO training I click through every October.
The “woke” military is trying to indoctrinate you with EEO for supervisors!!!! /s
I spent two days finding chemicals and printing SDS sheets. We have stuff that *expired* in the 90s. On the other hand, did you know DHMO is an inhalation hazard even when distilled?
We still have a fax machine in my office. 20th century technology is obviously part of the conspiracy
We still use our fax machine multiple times a day.
I send and receive faxes, but only through Outlook through an eFax setup.
I've heard the Prosthetic purchasing agents in the VA have to fax/secure fax orders to vendors and can't use online portals.
The VA uses lots of faxing.
Same for IRS. Wanna send them paperwork? Email? That's witchcraft. Send a fax. 🤦♀️
I like to tell them ALL the steps needed to buy a box of pens.
That’s on purpose. The cabal doesn’t want you printing.
Legit printed the biggest how to and stuck it on my printer the other day. Definitely felt accomplished. What a PITA.
There’s no changing their mind. Just mess with them and say you joined the chem trail department.
"Sorry, I gotta go get into my black stealth helicopter and get back to the office."
“Sorry I have a busy schedule this week reprogramming all the birds and voting machines.”
"Ugh...they still have you on birds? The Department of Squirrels is so much better - and we get the best coffee!"
I would argue that the department of squirrels would be a lateral move. I’ve heard the Taylor swift bureau is where it’s at or…. Trees.
I thought /r/trees was banned? :p
I have obviously met my people
My agency is too busy trying to recover from Alex Jones amazing investigating journalism piece where he exposed us putting chemicals in the water to turn frogs gay. I don't know if my agency will ever recovery from that exposure.
Me when I heard the conspiracy theory about the helicopters my agency supposedly had: “shit, I could have been taking a helicopter all this time instead of doing my fly commute on American?!”
> There’s no changing their mind. You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
Yeah I'll get Mulder and Scully right on that
My mom confronted me about nanobots in the covid vaccine, so I asked her why we'd spend trillions tracking people's locations, thoughts, spending habits, etc. when *she's* already paying *them* to do it for us, and I waved her cell phone in her face. She turned beet red and stopped asking me about it
I was on a virtual townhall where some pharmacist was talking about the vaccine and got interrupted with that question. She holds her phone up to the screen - "well you can start by throwing this in the river because it has more microchips than I could dream getting into a syringe." "Do we have any other intelligent questions." And continued on without missing a beat.
It's amazing how many people believe conspiracy theories that collapse completely under the slightest bit of scrutiny.
It's only possible when people lack any comprehension of technological achievement. Oh you want nanobots? Get back to me in 500 years at the earliest. They mistake science fiction in movies as reality.
This is one that always bugs me. 25 years ago? Okay sure. But today? Nah. Everyone *except* the government is tracking your location!
Reminds me of the time when some dummy was talking about how “they” know everything. They even know when you use the toilet on an airplane. And I said, well don’t take your phone with you. And he got silent. Lol
My response is that if somebody invented a microchip, with a lifetime battery, small enough to fit into a syringe, they should get the Nobel Prize
I once had my friend's aunt tell me that the government was watching us through our tv sets. I asked her who was getting paid to watch millions of hours of footage that was probably mostly very uninteresting, and she bluescreened right in front of me.
My best friend’s father growing up believed this. He became radicalized and sold all his baseball cards (he had some insanely valuable card like a Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth) and started buying food and guns. He told me the govt was watching us through the tv and they’d come to put us in camps. He told me he’d shoot us all first and when I was ascending to heaven not to look back at my parents. LOL.
Little did he know it’s probably the party he supports that would be interested in doing that in the future lmfao
Should have dared him to open up a TV and show you the camera.
My MIL thinks she is being spied on through her phone/gps -.- but I’m thinking it’s a mental decline issue like dementia, because that’s the only thing that would make sense.
People confuse the govt's ability to do something against a target with actually thinking they're a target without any basis for that belief. No, the govt doesn't care about grandma's phone unless she's been doing some shady shit to get herself on some agency's radar. Who is actually listening to our phones are the tech companies and the AI "assistants" they've embedded in the smartphones. Start talking with a friend about some random product? Ads related to that random product soon start showing up on your feeds, without you even having done an Internet search.
Well. She is being tracked if she uses a cellphone. She’s not wrong about that, it’s just the WHO and the WHY she’s got wrong. How do you explain to someone who is paranoid that well, they’re right but they’re wrong?!
it kinda is with most of these folks
LG, Roku, etc, are "watching you"
[удалено]
I'm assuming this is back in the day before tvs had things like cameras and mics built in or any kind of computer processing
"What makes you think you're so interesting?" - also works
Honestly why I think 1984 sucks. Orwell was at the time a bitter dying man who couldn't imagine a future without Stalin (not communism, not the USSR, just literally Joseph Stalin), which would arrive less than 4 years after the book's publication. So now we're stuck with our primary cultural lens for dystopia being a really tortured metaphor about an extremely specific period of history, and the really unimaginative aspects of the book's portrayal of the future have become culturally accepted truths about our present reality.
It was a limited imagining of surveillance (visual) based in the technology of the time period. At the time it would be hard to fathom the sheer amount of data people produce or having algorithms to crunch it, never mind how it could be used for surveillance and I am sure there's still a lot of people who don't understand how that could or does work. The control of people through language was pretty spot on though.
I tell them program the microchips in the vaccine
This is great! I’m going to start saying that I oversee vaccine manufacturing to ensure the tracking chips are operational and that they turn kids gay.
"We're collecting your DNA every time you lick a postage stamp and mail something."
I found de joy in that statement
I replace the batteries in the "birds" (drones). #BirdsArentReal
I tell them not to worry, the process of contracting technical work out will eventually drain the competency of enough federal agencies that corporations will fully capture the seat of government. And that if they don't like the current government cabal, they'll hopefully like the Lockheed/General Dynamics/Raytheon/Northrop Grumman oligarchy.
Not too far from the truth - in our shop a lot of major national programs are only one or two feds deep and some of the fed subject matter experts are just a few years away from retirement. Outsourcing everything was one of Reagan's worst ideas for how to run government.
It's not designed to be effective governance. It's designed to shift funding to large corporations.
My dad thinks the same shit and is also a fed 🙄
Is he not invited to the Jewish space laser meetings?
I think they got him on weather control or maybe it was the ice wall.
The ice wall? I don’t have the clearance to know about that!
I will never forget the day I walked to my car in the secure parking lot of my federal facility and saw one of my coworkers had a 3%er bumper sticker. Guess when the call to rise up comes he will shoot himself first
I am always amazed at right wing feds. Everyone in the governments sucks...except for them.
I don’t get it either. Their own people said they wanted to cut the fed workforce in half.
These people. One minute they claim the government is too incompetent to fix a pothole. The next, they claim they are orchestrating complex conspiracies, and doing it to perfection. Old people like to say things. Just take it for the babbling that it is.
I wish it was just old people.
The paradox of federal workers: we're simultaneously too incompetent to be worth our salaries and orchestrating massive conspiracies to control the American people.
"Oh please, if the Deep State™ existed I would've been recruited on day one," always works for me.
I tell them if they keep harassing me, I’ll mess with their credit score and call Soros and Gates to get them to tank their 401k.
How about if they keep messing with you you'll dump the same stuff Alex Jones claims we were putting in the water to turn frogs gay into theirs.
What’s crazy to me is *working* with some of those people! The other day I walked past two colleagues talking about chem trails! 🤣 Personally, I don’t tell people where I work. Person: Where do you work? Me: In an office. Person: What do you do? Me: Verify information on forms. I’m your basic pencil-pusher. The person asking is already so bored that I can walk away without them even noticing I never said *where* I work 🤣
Yup. Had my eyes opened when I found out that a few people in FDA were vaccine hesitant. Did you think that if you got an FDA job, you'd be able to Uncover The Truth?
Americans are illiterate when it comes to extrapolating life experience vs statistics.
How people think the government controls their life: Microchips, vaccines, chem trails How the government actually controls their life: changes a 0.01 into a 0.02 in an excel spreadsheet
Just don't change a 1 to a 0 or it'll all come crashing down.
"Contrary to what has been leaked, the Jewish Space Lasers are aimed away from earth - not towards it. And if you only knew what we were warding off the last thing you'd worry about is the illuminati."
I had a detail to Mt. Rushmore back in 2015. People would come up to me and make statements about putting Trump on the mountain. I looked at them with a straight face and told them the space next to Roosevelt was reserved for Hillary. Lots of brains short circuited that weekend.
“brains”
😆. Amusing
I actively encourage it. As ridiculously as possible. After dispensing the gay drugs into the water supply, my typical day includes preparing child sacrifices for the Clinton’s, and photoshopping our flat earth into a round image for the nasa interns. It’s a pretty chill day if I can hop a domestic flight to hit up some chem trails, and add some mercury nano bots into vaccines. Doing the hard work to make sure our tax dollars are spent wisely.
Start keeping a small notebook in your pocket and anytime he says something, quietly write down all the details of what he said and then put it back in your pocket. When he asks what you're doing, just tell him he doesn't' have the proper clearance for the information he's requesting lol
Assure them that it is true, and that while you are not quite at that level, your Director does in fact report to the agency’s supervising contact with the Trilateral Commission. Surprisingly I’ve found people who believe in that sort of thing to actually respect you if you hand out this spiel and they leave you alone about it for the most part. It’s denying that you are part of a vast conspiracy that confirms you must be part of a vast conspiracy. Source: I might have a crazy extended family.
I'm a NASA employee. I tell people the truth, that we simply can't keep a secret. We get so excited about the most mundane shit and tell everyone around us. If we had aliens, they would be in selfies with us all over social media, and we would be jabbering about it to uninterested members of the sex we're attracted to before they wander off out of boredome. Here's a goofy story, just for fun: about 10 years ago I was a deputy director in an organization and I was in the hallway talking to the director of another org. A Project Manager for a reimbursable project (industry partner) came up to us and said, "you two need to see something." She was very agitated and I found myself kind of excited because we were headed into a room where video that hadn't been cleared for release was processed. I never got to go in there. Anyway she is showing us footage of a ground test that we were familiar with but then something was moving in the video foreground. It wasn't an animal, and it wasn't something caused by thermals on the desert floor. It also made a really weird movement that looked kind of strange. We watched it a dozen times (the director even, hilariously, asked if we could enhance it like it was an episode of CSI and none of the professional video people around us had thought of it) before we realized we were looking at a Mylar balloon. I was so annoyed...I thought that, finally, I was seeing some crazy espionage or something even crazier. But nope. Just someone's carelessly handled Mylar balloon wandering around the desert...
You are all so naive. As a GS-22 in the deep state I scoff at you.
I don't associate with morons, so it's not a concern.
You are on the fednews subreddit. Who do you think you are fooling?
And this is partly why I try not to talk about my job. I just say I just do paperwork, nothing exciting. Which is true.
Omg, I got one of these on the phone back at the IRS and, well, it had been a day. So I covered my mic and said "Shit, sir he's on to us! Send in the choppers!" He hung up. I got a very stern talking to.
🏆
Just tell him you have to work for the government to ensure your family a spot in the best underground fall out shelter.
The robes and candles are cool, but all the chanting does get a little tiresome. Flawless 5G signal all the time is Def sweet. My favorite part is deciding which minor right wing celebrity to cancel this week. Crossing my fingers for Kevin Sorbo!
You only get 5G? Man your agency is behind, we’ve got 6G over here.
I don't associate with people like that (although they are online). Hard to do when it's your dad. Sounds like you're gonna have your hands full with him.
You can’t argue with stupid
They drag you down to their level, and beat you.
I would lean into it and pretend to accidentally let slip details about activating the microchips the government has implanted in us or whatever cockamamie batshit plans he thinks are happening, personally.
I told people I lay awake at night trying to think of ways to make their lives miserable. Wait, no, I don't! Because, as they often forget, I am also a taxpayer impacted by the decision of govt!
Shoot, the same people who spout conspiracy theories at me are also the ones who demand their free healthcare provided by the government.
You must have BLUE LEVEL CLEARANCE to even discuss that in public! Rumors are treason! GOOD DAY CITIZEN! [https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0609/6139/0839/files/Paranoia\_Preview.pdf?v=1666949240](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0609/6139/0839/files/Paranoia_Preview.pdf?v=1666949240)
Talk in a robot voice and say: “message from nanobot central … you are delinquent on your IRS taxes. Please say or press one to talk to a representative” and “all of our customer service representatives are currently unavailable. Please stand by.”
I thank them for paying my salary with their taxes, which gets them on about taxes and changes the subject fairly effectively.
That doesn’t work when you work for the IRS sadly
"My taxes pay your wages!!" "I work for the IRS sir, my taxes also pay my wages." I've said that on a few calls with taxpayers before, then they get all 🤯! 😂
I work in a federal office that doesn’t have a working fax machine.
I have a friend who swears my people at work have secret government cover ups. I just tell them that my co workers don't even know what to do during a fire drill.
My aunt told me I’m part of the deep state therefore she can’t believe anything I say. I said okay 😂🙄
I start bitching and moaning about how the illuminati lizard cabal won't let me in because I refused to unionize. Woke has ruined everything! "Oh how I yearn for the days of *in*voluntary sacrifice. None of this #MeToo bs!"
I don’t have a battle of intelligence with unarmed opponents. It’s like kicking a puppy. No fun or honor.
Not a Machiavellian Cabal. That's a private industry thing.
Press your finger to your ear and say some Latin words, then smile and nod. Make no mistake our government is far from perfect and has been involved in shady dealings and some pretty gross actions. But hardly any of this is coordinated. I bet most of us could only dream of the kind of efficiency that would allow a proper cabal to function.
I complain that I’m not part of the Deep State yet because I’ve yet to receive my ceremonial sword and cape
One cannot reason with people like this… …in situations like this, one just nods and say “…yep…” and try the subject by deflecting it to some mundane and lame topic like the how good the lawn looks or how well the birds sing… Like this: DAD: “Gud dumm goooovernment fuckin’ around n creating chaos in the potato chip market…raisin’ prices so a man can’t even buy a bag o’chips for the game…!!!” YOU: “…yep….yard lookin’ mighty nice pop……how be aunt Mary? She be feedin’ ‘em song birds good still…” Take it from me - 18 year federal employee listening to stupid shit from farm in-laws on how the USG is fucking everything up and how city folks don’t work…🙄
The ones that really get me are coworkers. Like extended family I only see once a year are one thing, but people who actually work here; when we first got PIV cards I had to respond to a person who asked if could not use it because it was “a mark of the beast”.
I would’ve said oh no you’re mistaken, it’s not PIV…it’s CAC!
I don't. If they can't give me the secret handshake, I don't talk to them.
He probably also thinks that government is incredibly bloated and inefficient. Ask him which it is - a group of evil, hyper focused geniuses plotting to destroy the country or a group of fat cat welfare queens bumbling along and wasting tax payer dollars?
Has your dad also fallen down the sov-cit or q-anon nonsense? If so, abandon all hope, he's too deep into the conspiracy rabbit hole. If he's just a garden-variety paranoid person, then just lean into it. Tell him it's the Fight Club of federal gov, and you're not allowed to talk about it.
Oh, so he is aware of the Republican plan to kill democracy?
Tell him he’s an idiot
Idk. One of my coworkers was a crazy federal government conspiracy theorist, ya know even though he himself worked for the federal government.
Worked with a fed law enforcement officer who thought Independence Day was based on ligit facts. 
*stares* “That’s it, you’re on the list.”
Start dry washing your hands and say muah ahahahahaha.
I typically ask what they think of me in that case. Especially when it is someone close, how hurtful it is to imply I would be a part of something like that. And if they again imply that it might happen without my knowing, then surely they see how ludicrous that sounds, or at least how overly complicated it is. It’s better to break things down to their basics in these instances. Start simple, and ask why they would make claims for an organization I (you) are associated with, when that implies our complicity.
Starring intensely at them. “Yes, I am apart of it. What was your name again?”
Gosh darn, foiled again by the American citizenry. Guess I'm going to have to change my cover again.
I think the majority of it is either mental illness or cognitive decline and either way I simply don’t engage
We're not? /jk Being completely serious now it goes without question that there's nothing wrong with a healthy distrust of government. Key being healthy. In fact that has always been kind of a theme since the founding of America. Obviously over the top conspiracy theories are another thing altogether but people who either blindly trust or blindly agree with government are concerning to say the least.
I tend to remind those people that they work in the same office as me and have been part of these conspiracies they believe in for longer than I have been alive. It rarely works...
“I’m literally a barista that happens to get a paycheck from the federal government.” Gotta love those NAF positions
I pull up to their small town USA in the federal vehicle and exclaim, “i’M HerE for YoUR GunS!!!”
Oh, I don’t know how people get these stupid ideas. I am however a proud member of the deep state.
My cousin is convinced of a deep state that put tracking chips in vaccines. I told him, "honestly, we don't care. You have a debit card and cellphone, if we want to track you we can get your info from your mobile provider, what you buy from all your store bonus cards and debit card, and your contact info from Google. They track you, we don't have to.
I was approached in a McDonald’s while I was waiting for my daughter to finish up a sports practice while I was wearing my PIV card around my neck. I just agreed with the guy that Obama was ruining the U.S. in the hopes he would just go away. It was that day that I stopped wearing my badge outside of the office.
Having the PIV out in public isn’t a good idea both for OPSEC and to avoid those uncomfortable interactions you had. I have heard some crazy theories during similar interactions just wearing a Navy hoodie I bought while working at a shipyard. My sympathies.
I learned early on to either stuff my badge into my shirt pocket or take my lanyard off altogether when I step outside the building.
My cousins’s husband thought the NSA spied on everyone’s internet. I told him they did until they got to me. Those people are still in therapy.
I tell them the opposite problem. That my agency is largely captured by the industry we regulate and is failing to keep them safe.
I prefer that over reality.
I write their name on the list. 
“Thank you for paying my salary.”
I had a friend who was convinced I worked for some black ops part of the guv. I had to go through a Top Secret BI and they of course asked for references. I gave them the friend's name but they had A LOT of questions, e.g. what do I do, where's my office, what type of super secret info do I have access to. The investigator and I tried to explain we couldn't get into that type of information. Also tried to explain what I did but they didn't believe me.
Wait...you're NOT part of the cabal?!? You need to start coming to the meetings, yo.
I agree with them and then watch their heads spin.
Mess with them as much as legally possible
"I'm not allowed to talk about that"
I wink
Relax, you are not part of the Cabal. You are just an unwitting tool that the people in charge use to destroy our democracy and control us. When they hand out keys to the good Vaults, you wont be getting a Key. You will be able to suffer along with the rest of us when the stupidity hits the fan.
“My life is nowhere near as interesting as it seems on TV.”
Put them on a watch list.
I tell them there is a secret cabal but they're dead set on instituting an extreme right wing Christian Nationalist theocracy, it's only half of Congress and corporate America that are involved, and I'm just a dude who wants to do his job and go home, just like anyone else.
I just quietly smile at them like Hannibal Lector...
Here is a different perspective. In my career, my colleagues and I have negotiated with countless people from the industry we regulate. As with any negotiation, this can be frustrating at times. Many feel as if the other side is purposely working for delay or doing anything they can to derail us instead of working with us for the best outcome. Long ago, one of my managers told us that we had to back off the assumption that everybody we negotiated with were evil geniuses. The simpler explanation would almost always be that, in addition to not agreeing with a number of things we were attempting, that they actually don't understand where we are coming from. Furthermore, as with every group of people, we don't know if we are dealing with their best and brightest any more than they do with us. It is very likely, with some very obvious exceptions, that most of the people on both sides are trying to do the best job they can with integrity.
Idk, industry says they want to work with us and then file frivolous lawsuits and some bad actors even write the shittiest things in their “rebuttals” for matters we bring against them (which already need to be on the extreme cases for us to pursue action) I’ve been growing increasingly disillusioned at cooperation.
This is the "legacy" Donald tRump has left the country---distrust of all government institutions, agencies, and people who aren't 100% in agreement with everything the Rump says.
https://youtu.be/7iR98IWG0ms
I don't
Ignore
I would walk away/hang up the phone anytime he started talking crazy. I wouldn't even acknowledger it, just simply leave.
I laugh all the way to a good and earlier retirement than they will get.
Its ignorance. We can barely get the most basic functions completed, yet alone some grand conspiracy.
I just laugh. Not worth my time.
Give them the secret handshake?
“How’d you find out?”
I find it rather entertaining and ironic that some people can confidently state they don’t associate with idiots/morons. You most surely do, you just lack the humility to admit it.
I’m a Jew AND a fed…I tell them to shut their fucking mouth before I send the WWJC after them.
i wish i was
I acknowledge the truth of it and let them know they're already under surveillance, and their actions will affect the outcome.
I ran into one of them. I usually just say people work their jobs so they can go home after 8 hours. These same people seem to expect government workers to be a "clock in clock out" lazy types.
I don't know anyone like that and I don't respond to that sort of nonsense anyways. Of course, a bunch of people here will literally say the same thing about the GOP. It's a funny and unique experience being a Fed and a Conservative. Just keep watching the show.
Nice try feds
I don’t.
Are you not?!
Their optimism about the organizational capabilities of the federal government is naive, but endlessly charming.
I know of no one that thinks this.
lol, why would people who are too underpaid to afford housing be part of some cabal. thats for very rich people as a start
You don’t because they’ve bought into the disinformation and aren’t worth it.
Teach them a bogus secret handshake, wink, then run away.
I don't. I get the hell away from those whackadoodles as quickly as is practicable.
I play into it and feed their fears.
Just tell them you can't get into specifics, but they're just on the tip of the iceberg
Lean into it. Tell them you can't talk because you are late for a party at Comet Pizza.
I want to tell them that if they feel that way then we can just roll back all that CDBG funding that pays for rural and small town water/sewer systems, and they can feel free to just go OYO: build an outhouse and hike to the nearest creek with buckets.
I was recently implicated as a pro-Israel baby killer when I went into a convience store by the British employee.. and this is in Asia. I just wanted some fried chicken.
I let out a diabolical laugh. Take their picture. And then yell loudly that I, (name of a guy I hate), will be looking for them. In the system. Then I run off. 🤣😂